Absolute Power (Core Book 1: System)

If you’re a regular reader here, you likely know that my reviewing history started with comic books. If we go even farther back I was collecting comics well before I was playing games beyond Monopoly and Chess. Years later the universe has decreed that I read fewer comics, and to be honest, even fewer of them end up superhero comics. That doesn’t mean I don’t still love both the medium and the genre. I keep debating whether to narrow the focus of TheRatHole.ca, and superhero/comicbook based games are always on that list to consider. So are roleplaying games, so really there are very few worlds where Absolute Power wouldn’t be crossing my desk and your eyes. Absolute Power is the Second Edition of 2002’s Silver Age Sentinals RPG, with the canonical “Sentinel-Earth” setting advanced to 2021. The project ended up being so large that the core rulebook had to be split up. Today I’ll only be looking at the System book which is, by definition, the drier and more mechanical of the two. That’s not to say the book isn’t incredible as a standalone, but I’m more excited for the second one. 

The original Silver Age Sentinals was, by all accounts, a pretty great game. But the Silver Age of heroes has come and gone. Both in the world of the game and in the world around us. History will be looking back on the past 20 or so years and likely be blown away. I’ll save most of that conversation for the next review though. One of the bigger reasons for an update to Silver Age Sentinals was the update to the system that it was based on. SAS built and advanced the rules for the anime RPG, Big Eyes Small Mouths. The release of BESM Fourth Edition included the rebranding of that game to simply “BESM” as well as branding the system powering the game to the Tri-Stat System. This new version of the Tri-Stat System was the most flexible and cohesive version to date, and so work began on what would become Absolute Power. One of the nice things about all of that is that all the books and resources for BESM and/or other Tri-Stat System games (and we have reviewed most of them with more to come) are all incredibly easy to integrate into Absolute Power.

Chapter 2 of the System Book gets players all on the same page (page 25, just to be cheeky about it) with the GM and setting expectations with them and each other about the game to come. This includes the benefits of creating your characters as a collective, determining the Power Level of your character in relation to planned storylines, and establishing the personal boundaries of the players at the table. The goal of any game is to have fun and that includes not being a dick to your fellow players but also not playing a character that simply doesn’t fit the story. At a normal Human Power, a player gets 25-49 Character Points to customize their character with a Maximum Stat Value of 7, while Major Powers get 150-199 Points up to a 16 Max, and Godlike Powers get 300+ points and a functionally unlimited 20+ Max. You can imagine how game-breaking having a character blown away by a God-like sneeze could be. The chapter also includes a Character Quiz that can help lead players, especially newer ones, to think about intangible roleplaying elements that can also guide in choosing the more tangible mechanical elements.

Chapter 3 is all about speeding up the creation process by using templates. Think about any superhero and you’ll find that all of them can be slotted into Archetypes; The Speedster, The Inventor, The Powerhouse, and so on. Less important to most groups are templates focusing on the size of a character. There are also templates for a character’s origin. These Origins are drawn from the official canon of the game’s “Sentinal-Earth” and may or may not be relevant to players, but they do give them more ideas. It’s important to note that these are templates not fully fleshed out, pre-generated, characters. They are possible starting points before moving into the next chapters of the book. 

Chapter 4 is a few short pages looking at the three stats in the game: Body, Mind, and Soul, as well as the values that are derived from them. While Chapters 5-7 finish off most of the creation process. 

Chapter 8 is one of the more vital chapters, as it focuses on the basics of how to play the game including a short but deep dive into how an effects-based system like the Tri-Stat System works and why. This carries on through Chapter 9 which expands the rules for groups that want a bit more out of the game. Just to compare with the BESM core book, this section basically became an entire sourcebook and I haven’t had a chance to do a good hard look at the two side-by-side. 

Chapter 10 technically gives context to the “Item” Attribute that is used to give a character cheaper access to super-gear, generic items and gear, vehicles, and how to modify any of that. Chapter 11 takes a similar approach to the “Companion” and “Minion” Attributes, but also gives enough detail to use as templates for maybe NPC characters as well.

The book ends with a look at all those little things that bring your character to life and brings everyone’s character together. There is more to a good game and a good story than just punching out bad guys, and Chapter 12 does a great job looking at most of them.

You probably noticed that I skipped Chapter 1. That was intentional because it is one of the least connected chapters, and honestly the chapter I appreciated the most. I spent years learning about comic book history. Not everyone who likes superheroes will have done that. Not everyone who likes superheroes wants to do that. But some of the people who like superheroes simply won’t have had the opportunity to do that or know where to start. This is where those people can start. 

Chapter 1 doesn’t just introduce Absolute Power, it also introduces the history and evolution of the superhero in pop culture. Starting with pulp magazines, to the golden and silver ages, though notable shifts in the industry over the decades, and from the page to the screen. Although they sadly skipped over the significance of the earliest radio adaptations, this chapter provides a great summation of a topic that could easily fill not only this entire book but entire university courses and degrees all the way up to a full doctorate program. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if there wasn’t a course on the history of academic courses on comics. 

Absolute Power is going to be absolutely amazing. It was created with a love of the genre and of the original Silver Age Sentinals game. Mark MacKinnon, the original creator and designer of the current Tri-Stat system, said in his Foreword that Absolute Power is “undoubtedly my favourite creation” before praising the work of Line designer and author, Robin Flanagan. Book One is a solid start, but I have zero doubt from the small amount of world-building in it that Book Two: Essentials is going to be off the charts. 

You can find more about all of The Dyskami Publishing Company’s games at www.dyskami.ca or on Facebook at facebook.com/dyskami.

American customers can also pick up Absolute Power and other Tri-Stat System products through Japanime Games at japanimegames.com and facebook.com/JapanimeGames.